Feb 10, 2012

QUERY- LESTOOR’S CHOSEN

Dear Oh-All-Mighty Agent,

After Amarris watches blood collectors slit a boy’s throat, she wants nothing more than to escape her destiny as the Mezaran Empire’s future leader. She cuts her hair, disguises herself as a boy, and apprentices with a thief, a man who rescues sacrificial slaves as a pastime. But her new life doesn’t quench her blood-burning addiction, and the Empire won’t just let her go.

Amarris is the Empire’s most talented lestari, able to absorb human blood and create divine fire. She can create invisible fire, fire that consumes any material, and even fire that burns out another lestari’s powers. If her master knew what she was, he’d probably kill her. And creating fire comes with a price steeper than blood. The more fire Amarris uses, the more the Mezaran god manipulates her, until she’s not sure which thoughts are still her own.

When she discovers the Empire plans to invade Darsia, the only country that’s ever repelled it, she crosses the ocean in an attempt to both break her ties with the Mezaran god, and to warn them. But her penchant for thievery entangles her in Darsia’s tempestuous politics, and she’s increasingly unsure of who she can trust. Amarris’ arsenal whittles down to one weapon: divine fire. If she runs, the Empire will kill everyone she’s come to care about. If she fights, she risks succumbing to the Mezaran god, destroying the people she is trying to save and losing her free will in the process.

LESTOOR’S CHOSEN is a fantasy novel that is complete at 140,000 words. This novel is a stand-alone work with trilogy potential.

3 comments:

Anonymous Author
said...

Okay. This query shows you're able to write well.

But it's hard to say exactly what's going on here.

Consider deleting the first paragraph. It takes us in too many directions at once, starts with an image that many agents may not read past, and ends with an addiction that hasn't been mentioned before-- just confusing.

Consider another name for the Empire.

Try to boil your whole story down to one sentence. Focus your query on that.

I was actually quite intrigued by this query. I loved the first paragraph and wanted to know what a "blood burning addiction" was.

I did get a little confused in the third paragraph, possibly for a couple of reasons. "Darsia" could easily be a person's name, especially in fantasy. The end of the first sentence says, "...and to warn them." I had to read that sentence twice to be certain the MC was trying to warn the country, not a person. I was also taken out of the query to wonder how thievery would get someone tangled up in politics (although as I type those words, I couldn't help but chuckle).

I was also a little taken aback by the word count, and I love long books. However, it sounds like an intriguing and unusual concept - I would probably want to know more.

I agree with both the previous commenters--this is an intriguing story, but a confusing query at the moment.

I agree that deleting the first paragraph would lessen the confusion. Shortening the second paragraph to be more succinct may also help, since most of it doesn't actually pertain to the main thrust of the query, the plot--something like "Amarris is the Empire's most talented lesteri, able to absorb human blood and create divine fire. But creating fire comes with a price steeper than blood: the more fire Amarris uses, the more she becomes a tool of the Mezaran god."

I wasn't clear on why the god "manipulating" her isn't a good thing. Is it not considered a good thing to be god-touched?

In the third paragraph: the first two sentences are interesting, but the third loses me because there's a such a big gap between "entangled in politics" and "stripped of every weapon but one." And then there's no explanation of what she's running from now, or how the Empire knows she's out in Darsia.

So, a little streamlining and more clarity of the main points would be good. But I'm already interested in the story, so that's a good start.